Gustav’s bearing down on major refineries

How big are the refineries that Hurricane Gustav could trample if it smacks Texas or Louisiana?

Huge. Four of the nation’s five biggest refineries are situated in a region from Baton Rouge, La. to Texas City. Those four plants alone can process almost 2 million barrels of crude oil a day.

Or take the refineries that stretch from just west of New Orleans, where Valero Energy has a 250,000 barrel-a-day plant, to BP’s huge 467,720 barrel-a-day plant in Texas City. The plants in that stretch can process more than 8.5 million barrels of crude oil a day.

That translates to a lot of finished fuel when the plants run full out — about 166 million gallons of gasoline every day.